He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course,

but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours

of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling

to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost.

I don't think it will come again--ever."



"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson.



"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton.



And Sanderson said he was surprised.



We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. "I know," he said, with

the flicker of a smile, "but the fact is it really WAS a ghost,

and I'm as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not

joking. I mean what I say."



Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton,

and then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words.



Clayton ignored the comment. "It is the strangest thing that has

ever happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts

or anything of the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag

one in a corner; and the whole business is in my hands."



He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce

a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.



"You talked to it?" asked Wish.



"For the space, probably, of an hour."



"Chatty?" I said, joining the party of the sceptics.



"The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end

and with the very faintest note of reproof.



"Sobbing?" some one asked.



Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. "Good Lord!" he said;

"yes." And then, "Poor fellow! yes."



"Where did you strike it?" asked Evans, in his best American accent.



"I never realised," said Clayton, ignoring him, "the poor sort of

thing a ghost might be," and he hung us up again for a time, while

he sought for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar.



"I took an advantage," he reflected at last.



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